And note that Robert Fripp did two-handed tapping in 1969.

Too bad this isn't the whole song.

/not submitter

"21st Century Schizoid Man" was way before its time, and not just because of the title.

Entire song with goofy background picture. (new window)

Those dudes were almost Zappaesque with this tune.

I've always considered this song to be the beginning of heavy metal. There is some Sabbath around the same time, but this is the beginning for me.

I've been getting into them more and more. I really like "In the wake of Posiedon"

Nice, really good. Hard rock needs more sax.

If you want to hear a different side of Fripp, check out Giles, Giles and Fripp. Pre-Crim, very *very* different sound.

A couple of other nice hard Crimson tunes:
One More Red Nightmare - Red (Wetton-era)
Happy With What You Have To Be Happy With (2nd Belew Era)

And as a contrast, some (dare I say it) beautiful Crimson pieces:
Prelude of The Gulls - Islands
Walking on Air - Vroom
Trio - Starless and Bible Black

The album "Red" is farking amazing.

IronTom

Nice, really good. Hard rock needs more sax mellotron.

FTFY.

/Had both their great albums till I moved from Florida to New Mexico. :-(

Great song, but phony video.... this is the same recording as on the album..... this is not a live recording......

oldebayer:

Nice, really good. Hard rock needs more sax mellotron.

FTFY.

I am guessing that a certain TFer/ex-keyboard tech might be along to hurl some particularly choice abuse at you for that. I loved the sound, and marveled at the audacity of the concept, but it's my understanding there was no greater nightmare in those days than touring with a mellotron -- they were heavy as crap and had a brazillion different ways to get messed up.

Pfft. Our guy was schizoid and paranoid, and we did it a century earlier to boot.

DrBenway
I am guessing that a certain TFer/ex-keyboard tech might be along to hurl some particularly choice abuse at you for that. I loved the sound, and marveled at the audacity of the concept, but it's my understanding there was no greater nightmare in those days than touring with a mellotron -- they were heavy as crap and had a brazillion different ways to get messed up.

THIS.
There is an old adage by Fripp that goes like this:
"Tuning a mellotron doesn't."

I remember reading that at that Famous Amsterdam Gig [aka. "The Night Watch" 2cd... i've yet to get it tho.... turns out half of it --- ie. the improv's and i think some other song --- is on "starless and bible black" album except w/ a few overdubs on that album] Cross' mellotron got fried on "the night watch" song... Wetton had to fill in the melody vocally... should be neat to hear...
ironically supposedly they didn't think it was the greatest gig, cuz of equipment and sound system 'incidents' and 'failures', and the crowd was not as receptive as they hoped... still it is infamous nowadays for being one of the best gig's on tape that the Wetton/Bruford KC played...

that being said, I think there's a majestic, eerie, haunting quality to the string sound [and even the flute function] of the mellotron.... that you can't get with modern keyboard strings or even strings itself... maybe it has to do with the fact that the sounds are stored on tapes in the mellotron itself... every slight defect adds to the sound in some way....

as one critic put it [i forget who... it's in one of the KC remastered booklets] early KC [ie. "in the court" and "in the wake of" albums] were "death of the universe" rock... or had "death of the universe mellotron" or something...

as Pete Townshend famously said, "in the court" is "an uncanny masterpiece". I would strongly agree with that statement. I still hate the last 7/10 of Moonchild, tho.... [shudder] ... all twiddly fiddly noises and silences... that doesn't really go anywhere....
I wish they had put "the devil's triangle" [*ahem* Holst's "Mars" *ahem*] in its place on the debut album... cuz i'm pretty sure they were playing a version of it on their earliest tours... oh wait... that was probably after the first album was released... oh well....

Fans of the wonderful Larks'/Red period should get a copy of The Great Deceiver. Brilliant unedited concerts by those guys at the peak of their power.

Rock doesn't need saxophone per se. It needs Mel Collins.

Or Dick Parry.

Or Raphael Ravenscroft, in a pinch.

And, it's fun to look at those acid-dropping hippies and realize that they're now conservative Republicans fretting about their market losses.

dmax:

And, it's fun to look at those acid-dropping hippies and realize that they're now conservative Republicans fretting about their market losses.


Considering that's from a performance in Hyde Park, London, I seriously doubt it.

I came for the Fripp. Where the fark is he?

dmax:

Rock doesn't need saxophone per se. It needs Mel Collins.


THIS, a thousand times over.

"Ladies of the Road" FTFW. I still, after 30 years of playing, can't get the opening growl Collins gets on that first solo--not with that same nastiness.

Would help if I still played every day, but still....

Third_Uncle_Eno: "Tuning a mellotron doesn't."

That's very funny... I've seen the Fripp, Belew, Levin, Bruford combo several times, but the original line-up was a little before my time. I'm pretty sure that there were drugs involved during each of those shows, but I can assure y'all that I have never danced (WTF!?) at a King Crimson concert.

real shaman: Great song, but phony video.... this is the same recording as on the album..... this is not a live recording......

yeah, I was a little disappointed in that. Also, that 21st Century was the only thing that sounded like that on the album.

/Fripp, Bruford, Whetton, Cross fan...

Anyone here pick the live disc of that recording - the Hyde Park show?

Both the Epitaph box set and Marquee live disc from that '69 group are excellent.

crypticsatellite: And note that Robert Fripp did two-handed tapping in 1969.

Too bad this isn't the whole song.

/not submitter

I always thought his tapping technique improved later. Perhaps it was due to his brief liason with Ollie Halsall in the early seventies. They did a recording together called "Ollie and the Blue Traffs"--slang for farts.It appears now lost. Holdsworth also credits Halsall. Saw the "Red" era K.C. in Oklahoma City in '73 or '74. My polka band did a version of "Starless and Bible Black" at the local Czech Festival. Didn't go over well. Now I spend my spare time avoiding Britney, Ashlee, Blink 182, new country, cigarettes, ice cream and figurines of the Virgin Mary. (not obsc. for this thread)

Arise Chicken: The album "Red" is farking amazing.

THIS!!!!

Is it just me or is that footage with the album cut placed over it?

Or were they were just that tight?

Crim is doing a mini-tour in August and is rumored to be doing a full scale tour next year. I've seen Fripp and Belew solo a few times, but since I'm only 21 I've never seen Crimson before. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to it.

A brief story...

I was 18 when I first heard of King Crimson. One of my closest friends from high school went to a different college than I did (him: SUNY Stony Brook). One of the upperclassmen he became friends with had a friend who found a copy of ITCOTCK (a record I think) on the ground, took it home and played it. He became a fan, passing on the wonder that is Crim to his friend, then to my friend, then to me (and eventually, me to my wife). As an introduction, my friend said "You'll like them... they influenced Primus." And he was right.

About a year or two later, a few of us went down to Asbury Park, NJ, which in the mid-90s was rundown, almost spooky. Before the show, members of Crim were standing on the roof of the venue, just watching the crowd. One of the other guys with us (who I don't think was drunk or high, just very eccentric) yells out "THEYLA MAFUNGEE!" which was a complete mispronunciation of Thela Hun Ginjeet. I think Belew gave him one of those sideways looks a dog will give you if you ask it for financial advice.

Rumor had it that Crim was going to play one of their older songs, something they typically didn't do (save Red, which seems to be a Crimson staple no matter which era). The guys refused to tell me which song it would be. We were in the venue before the show, just hanging out in the lobby, and Crim starts their sound check. I hear the opening strains of 21st Century Schizoid Man. I almost crapped myself.

During the show, they did an extended improv during Thrak. I actually fell asleep and was dreaming during it.

Years later, I got married. Our first dance at our reception was to Walking On Air.

DrBenway: oldebayer:

Nice, really good. Hard rock needs more sax mellotron.

FTFY.

I am guessing that a certain TFer/ex-keyboard tech might be along to hurl some particularly choice abuse at you for that. I loved the sound, and marveled at the audacity of the concept, but it's my understanding there was no greater nightmare in those days than touring with a mellotron -- they were heavy as crap and had a brazillion different ways to get messed up.

Actually...NO.....

Mellotrons did require a lot of maintenance to work right, but they weighed 1/4 of a Hammond B3.

Typical alignment time was 1/2 hour.....

clownyclownzomby: I always thought his tapping technique improved later. Perhaps it was due to his brief liason with Ollie Halsall in the early seventies.

what is fripp famous for tapping on(not counting the one note on the schizoid man solo) and what does that have to do with halsall(ive never heard halsall tap)?

clownyclownzomby: Holdsworth also credits Halsall.

with what? having legato technique thats not anywhere near as good as his?

clownyclownzomby: My polka band did a version of "Starless and Bible Black"

this sounds cool.

I find it neat and interesting [maybe a little repeatative] that Fripp likes to recycle music/themes in his songs...
for example:
Epitaph/In the Court ---> In the wake of poseidon [same tempos and general music and mellotron goodness]
Cat Food ---> Indoor Games [same tempo and same acoustic guitar riff around the chorus]
21st Century Schizoid Man ---> Pictures of a City [same general tempo, music theme, even similar riffs]
Ladies of the Road ---> Easy Money [same simple but tricky time signature, same general music theme, similar riffs]
North Star ---> Matte Kudasai [same music]

mahavishnunj: clownyclownzomby: I always thought his tapping technique improved later. Perhaps it was due to his brief liason with Ollie Halsall in the early seventies.

what is fripp famous for tapping on(not counting the one note on the schizoid man solo) and what does that have to do with halsall(ive never heard halsall tap)?

clownyclownzomby: Holdsworth also credits Halsall.

with what? having legato technique thats not anywhere near as good as his?

clownyclownzomby: My polka band did a version of "Starless and Bible Black"

this sounds cool.

We did the song because it was relatively east to play. Most listeners thought it was a lullaby. We also played it a a bar in Bethany, Oklahoma called Pauline's. It was near Lake Overholser and had a slotted floor that the lake ran near. On some days you could net minnows through the bar floor. I had my first beer there. The Halsall I was referring to was around the Tempest time of his career and some of the live Ayers stuff. If you find the Blue Traff recording, I'll play some K.C. at your next birthday party in Texas on my clarinet. I'm a displaced Texan so that would also be cool.

Cheers

The Rock N' Roll Hall Of Fame is a complete joke until King Crimson is inducted.

I like pretty much everything they've ever done.

This thread is pure win.

/Became a Crimson fan a few months ago mainly due to Fark.

Always been my favorite band. The sickest, heaviest prog-rock of all-time.

And a hell of a thing to see live, too. If only I could've been around for those '73-'74 shows...

Thela Hun Ginjeet!

Third_Uncle_Eno: I find it neat and interesting [maybe a little repeatative] that Fripp likes to recycle music/themes in his songs...
for example:
Epitaph/In the Court ---> In the wake of poseidon [same tempos and general music and mellotron goodness]
Cat Food ---> Indoor Games [same tempo and same acoustic guitar riff around the chorus]
21st Century Schizoid Man ---> Pictures of a City [same general tempo, music theme, even similar riffs]
Ladies of the Road ---> Easy Money [same simple but tricky time signature, same general music theme, similar riffs]
North Star ---> Matte Kudasai [same music]

I would add Red --> Vroom to that list.

I_Love_Cheesecake: Thela Hun Ginjeet!

is an anagram for "Heat in the Jungle" Love that song--saw them perform it on Fridays in '81 or '82. Met my wife about that time--who loved George Strait--hated K.C. I still lock her in her roon when I play them. Come to think of it, I should keep her confined at all times. Thanks Farkers!

Taken from Adrian Belew's blog.


Anecdote # 808

if you were to go on an international plane flight
and if you were to take along the scrabble tiles
A E E E G H H I J L N N T T and U
and if you were to scramble them into
as many phrases as you could come up with
and if you wrote each phrase down on your little notepad,
eventually you have one called thela hun ginjeet.

that's exactly how I arrived at that title on a flight to london.
the song was originally titled "heat in the jungle"
but robert correctly suggested a better title was needed,
something in keeping with the manic-africanesque
nature of the song, but less obvious.
so I used the same letters as "heat in the jungle"
to make anagrams on the plane.
the one I liked was thela hun ginjeet.
but what does it mean?
who cares, it sounds good and sings even better.

and if I had a dollar for each time I've explained it,
I'd be writing this from a sundeck in maui.

The True Story of Thela Hun Ginjeet.
the notting hill gate area of london at first glance seems like most semi-residential british neighborhoods with an occasional store or pub among crowded rows of little huts the english call "houses". only if you ventured down a side street might you detect the seedy underbelly where race riots had occurred in recent years and policeman had been killed.
a naive american guitarist would likely have no knowledge of such events.

in 1981 king crimson was in a studio in notting hill gate
recording our "honeymoon" record (i.e. our first) to be called discipline.
mulling over the shooting of john lennon the previous year
I was hoping to draw a disturbing lyrical picture of someone
who had been molested by someone with a gun
now being interviewed and questioned about it.
hence the working title "heat in the jungle".
all I had written to that point were phrases a person might say:
"he held a gun against me...this is a dangerous place", that kind of thing.
robert had a good suggestion,
"ade, why don't you take your walkman tape recorder and walk around on the streets saying your phrases into it. that way you'll pick up background noises and it will sound more like a real interview."

it was a nice sunny day so I set out walking through the neighborhood
practicing various ways of saying my phrases into the walkman recorder.
"he held a gun against me"...a car drove past.
oh, that'll sound nice in the background.
"this IS a dangerous place"...good, good, a dog was barking that time.
maybe I'll just go down this side street, it sounds a bit more noisy.

as I sauntered down a side street still speaking into my recorder
I noticed across the way a few ornery-looking rastafarians.
they were eyeing me.
they slowly crossed to my side of the street.
I rewound my tape recorder a bit to see how it was sounding.
suddenly I was surrounded by five or six rastas.
they were very agitated.
"what's that!? what you got dair?" looking at my walkman.
"nothing it's just a..."
"give it here!", the ringleader scowled
and he wrestled my tape recorder from me.
he turned it on and it said, "he had a gun...this is a dangerous place!"
it was like pouring kerosene on a ant hill.
"what gun?!! where do you see a gun? we don't have no gun!!"
now they were really worked up,
all shouting in that strange dialect.
under my hawaiian shirt I was wearing a talking heads tour t-shirt.
I showed them the shirt and said, "look I'm in this band, we're making a record..."
"you a policeman!" he shouted. "what gun?...you a policeman!!"
boy, they were mad now.
I really thought my life was in danger, my heart was racing.
they kept shouting incongruous things in my face.

then it was like a switch turned off.
they just let me go. backed away.
I don't know why, but they crossed over to their side of the street*.

so I started walking back towards the studio shaking like a leaf.
as I rounded the corner two policemen pulled up beside me
in a small white toy the english call a "car",
they asked me to stop.
they got out and began to question me.
what was I doing? where was I from? did I live around here?
they asked for my tape recorder and began taking it apart!
amazingly, they were looking for drugs.
they thought I was a drug dealer.
why else would a white boy with short hair be lurking in such a nasty place?

at last I made it back to the studio, my nerves shot,
I could barely make a sentence, I was so shaken up.
as I told everyone in the studio what had just happened to me,
robert secretly signaled the engineer to record what I was saying.
those bits of my mangled explanation
are what you hear on the record.

and thus a fictitious song about being molested
turned into a real live being molested.

* turns out the mean rastafarians were running an illegal gambling place
and when they saw me talking covertly into a tape recorder...

King Crimson are awesome. So awesome, in fact, that I'd let them eat my baby.

spacebar:

The Rock N' Roll Hall Of Fame is a complete joke until King Crimson is inducted.


Nah. I think it's pretty safe to say it will still be a joke. Some things even Robert Fripp can't fix.

Biological Ali: King Crimson are awesome. So awesome, in fact, that I'd let them eat my baby.

Funny thing is to me, Elephant Talk isn't the name of a song... it's the name of a King Crimson listserv that has sadly but understandably ceased to exist. Fripp actually read and posted on it from time to time. I believe he was quoted as saying "I don't know why anyone would read it all for fun."

/it's only talk

check out FFWD (Fripp, Fehlmann, Weston, Doctor), an offshoot of The Orb that features Fripp making some totally unreal sounds.

I saw KC in '93, only song I knew was '21st Century...' but I knew it would be a great show. Bruford and Levin were there, it was easily one of the best shows I ever saw or ever will see.

Kona_Bean:

Is it just me or is that footage with the album cut placed over it?

Or were they were just that tight?


Here is a short clip with the original "live" audio synched in.

On YouTube, there used to be some other very early black and white footage that was from a television appearance, but I can't seem to track it down just now. If I find it, I'll post a link to it.

King Crimson playing Elephant Talk!!
Link (new window)

//and no Not a RickRoll.

Did stumble across this, though: a fairly lengthy (2 parts, almost 17 minutes total length) 1979 interview with John Wetton on the topic of prog-rock, and comparisons between his work with Crimson and with Asia.

Dang, some html glitch... let's try it again: Wetton interview

It's actually in three parts, so it's more like 25 minutes long.

Aghh! U.K. not Asia!!!

and it's in FOUR parts, not 3.

Jeez, you'd think I was on drugs... Okay, to atone for my repeated fark-ups, here's some 1970 vintage Soft Machine, with Robert Wyatt on drums and vocals, before his accident.

I first heard this song late one night on the radio. Of course, the DJ didn't mention the band. For the longest time though I thought it was John Lennon. Thanks to Fark some months back I found out who really sang it. Been a fan of the band since.

Interview with Ian McDonald on early Crimson

More proggy goodness:

Van Der Graf Generator

Gentle Giant

PFM (Premiata Forneria Marconi)

and of course, Genesis

IronTom: Nice, really good. Hard rock needs more sax.

They are called "The Mars Volta".

And "Omar Rodriguez Quintet".


You're welcome.